Recorder: "High School welcomes new music director"

Post Date:

January 17, 2019

High School welcomes new music director

By GRACE BIRD

Staff Writer

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

GREENFIELD — Chris Moehringer, a 27-year-old University of Massachusetts Amherst graduate, performed his first recital as Greenfield High School music director Tuesday, less than two weeks after his Jan. 2nd start date.

“It’s definitely been overwhelming coming in and having the concert so soon,” Moehringer said in a phone interview. “The students were very well prepared, and I think it’s going to go very well.”

Moehringer began college as a engineering major, yet switched to music education after having “a very influential” band director his freshman year, he said.

“I just realized I was practicing far more than I was doing school work,” Moehringer said. “It made sense to switch.”

Moehringer has worked as a band director before, as one of three directors at Springfield High School of Science and Technology.

In addition to his day job, Moehringer serves as president of Valley Winds, a local professional wind ensemble, and conducts the Youth Wind Ensemble of Springfield.

“I wear many hats,” Moehringer said. “I’m very busy.”

Moehringer was recommended for the job by his predecessor and Valley Winds bandmate Maria Scotera, he said, after she moved to the middle school.

Music director is a tough job to fill, school committee member Susan Hollins wrote in an email.

“It’s not easy to find a music director who can lead both instrumental and choral music,” Hollins wrote. “To have a degree to teach music, you have to be pretty good at one instrument but you have to learn and be able to teach all instruments and singing for all vocal ranges.”

This website works best with Internet Explorer 9+ and the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. If you are seeing this message, you are using an unsupported browser which may cause this website to not function and display correctly. Please view in a different browser or update your current one to get the full experience of this website.